The Days
by averagefantasy
Summary: What follows is a complete account of the journal of Lena Feld, victor of the 42nd Hunger Games, which she kept in the years following her victory. Any person wishing to have their name removed from this series shall be turned away. The inscription in the cover of this journal details her name and the following handwritten quote: The days that haunt me shall follow me to the grave.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: What follows is a journal entry, date unknown, of Lena Feld, victor of the 42nd Hunger Games. I do not claim any ownership over the following entry, any of its events, or any of the people involved. I hereby release ownership to any relatives who have sufficient proof to be a descendant of Lena Feld, or anyone who is able to claim ownership over her possessions, or stories. I advise you to proceed with caution in reading this journal.**

* * *

 _now_

"Ms Feld, how does it feel to be up on this stage?"

The first wild thought that enters my mind is that I feel itchy. I wonder what it must feel like to be an audience member in the Capitol. When they ask this question, what do those people think is going through our minds? Do they think we love the reason we're here? The next thought that comes to mind, after the first one failed me abysmally, is that it feels awful. If I could say it, I would. I hate being here. I hate being played. I hate the Capitol, and I hate their Games. But I am Lena Feld, and I won the Hunger Games five months ago, so I must pretend that I love it.

"If I'm honest, Caesar," I lean forward instead of saying the words blaring across my mind, the picture of a perfect victor in a sparkly, flouncy gown, "it's very surreal. I still can't quite believe it's happening."

"Really?" Caesar says, his face contorting into something the audience will interpret as surprise, but no one in the districts will buy. He won't be surprised by any answer I give. In the Capitol right now, he alone knows everything that comes out of my mouth has been agreed upon by people far more important than I am, that I am merely a puppet. But he must pretend to be surprised anyways, so in return, I offer him a smile. "Really?" he repeats. "That answer is quite uncommon. Most victors have such faith that they will win in the beginning, that it does not come as such a surprise to them. But surreal, you say?"

"Oh, yes, absolutely." I sit back in my chair. "From the moment my name was called, everything has gone by so fast, I barely have enough time to process it. From the reaping to my interview with you to the beginning of the Games themselves."

"Ah," says Caesar, "that makes quite a bit more sense. I often feel like the whole Games process goes by too quickly. I often feel like my whole life goes by too quickly! One minute I was a stagehand, young and careless, and the next thing I knew I was an old man!" The audience laughs, some people are scream dissent. Caesar is far from young. At least, he doesn't look it.

"Oh, Caesar, please, you don't look a day over 35!" I tell him, lightly slapping his knee. He smiles widely, and I can tell I've done a good job.

"Now, onto the question we've all been wondering all evening…the final question. What took you so long to recover from the Games?" Caesar can no doubt tell that I hate being here. Only my eyes would betray me, and Caesar is the only one close enough to see my eyes. I can see it in his own.

"Oh, technicalities. I think something happened. One of the doctors noticed a severe issue and it took a few weeks for me to recover from the surgery." I sit back, and resist the urge to scratch my itching body. This dress is not itchy. It's a lovely dress, really. Cass did a wonderful job, but it's me being on this stage, and lying. It always makes me itchy.

I try not to go back to the weeks of torture, being put through session after session with a psychiatrist, who was trying to pry me out of my own mind, which was torn to pieces after the Games. I guess it's bad that while I didn't appear crazy during the Games and its climax, it would be bad if I appeared crazy after the Games. It's been months since the Games, and I still am not recovered. It's a miracle I appeared on the stage that night, let alone sane.

I catch the eye of my mentor, Patch, who's sitting in the audience. He's nodding, like I've done everything right so far. He won six years ago, and though he says it's not a big deal that I won so few years after him, I think it's miraculous. District 9 is never this lucky. Thankfully, the tributes will have good, young, and strong mentors looking after them next year.

"Well, Ms Feld, it has been a pleasure talking to you this evening. Enjoy your last few free months back before you're chained to the cameras again! Good evening, folks, and good night."

The roar of the crowd is deafening. I didn't know I would be this popular. I'm only from District Nine, after all. We're overlooked all the time. My own district partner died in the Bloodbath. And it was by chance that I survived.

It's only a moment that I'm alone after the interview ends until my escort, a tiny woman called Bonnie Sawyer, grips my arm with surprising strength and steers me off stage. She pulls me aside. I look behind her for Patch, who is never far behind her. He's not there. He probably escaped Bonnie's clutches to take a smoke behind an alley.

Bonnie frowns at me. "Lena. That was not impressive."

"I know," I say, looking away, though I'm not sure what I did wrong.

"Well, there's nothing we can do about it now. I just pulled you aside to ask if you wanted to go to the feast at President Snow's house. You don't have to."

I focus back on Bonnie. She wants me to take her up on this offer. Probably an actress will go in my place. That's almost what happened for my interview after the Games. Sometimes this happens in the Games; a tribute won't fare well enough to sit an interview or go to a feast, so the Capitol sends an actor in place of them. It's not all that unlikely, but I thought I would've done well enough to go as myself. Clearly, I've upset Bonnie in some way, because she looks even more anxious than usual. She's always been eager to impress President Snow; Patch and I are convinced that she has a crush on him.

"I'll go," I say cautiously. "The food will be good, right?" Evidently I've upset Bonnie in some way, because her face flushes angrily and I bite back, "Fine. Send an actress. I'm always incompetent, right?" I sound angrier than I intended. Bonnie still looks angry, if a little relieved, but she stomps off before I can say anything else. Which is fine, since I wasn't going to say anything anyway. I probably would mess up her whole day, if it could get any worse.

Patch materializes from behind a stagehand, and as he comes closer, I can smell the unmistakable stink of marijuana on his clothing. My nose wrinkles in disgust as he approaches. "Lena," he says. "Bonnie just ran off in tears while getting into the car. I think I'd be wrong to ask anyone else what the hell happened."

"Well, you're just right, aren't you?" I mumble, crossing my arms and collapsing in a random chair probably used for a backstage person.

"Well," Patch says, rubbing his eyes, looking tired, "what the hell happened, then?"

"Nothing."

Patch sighs, more in futility than in frustration this time. "Fine. Come along, Miss Sensitivity." I smirk at the memory of Patch calling me that before my Games, and take his offered hand.

* * *

 _then_

It was a cold, rainy day. I was different. In spite of the day, and the circumstances, I refused to be pessimistic, as my district partner was. Probably why the dumb shit died. It was raining so hard, and the microphone had been broken, that I didn't hear my name being called. The rain got so heavy in those next few moments that they had to write my name on a piece of cardboard and hold it up for everyone to see it, and even then I didn't think it was me. So I stepped out of the pen that they kept us in, and stood there for a few seconds in shock, staring at my name on the cardboard, getting soaked. At least I wasn't crying. Even in the rain, the people of the Capitol are hungry to find out who could stand the pressure of being reaped. After my name was called and I gave what I assumed would be my final goodbyes to my family and the one friend that came to see me, we, my district partner and I, were hauled, under umbrellas now (like we were important now that we were on our way to die), into the car that drove us to the train station. For some reason, we were in that car for more than twenty minutes, and when they finally delivered us to the train, they held up those damn umbrellas over our heads. I stared at the umbrellas. Why was I so important that they were suddenly inclined to protect me from the rain?

Once I had changed into dryer clothes, Patch stumbled into our train car, clutching a brown paper baggie. I wasn't sure what it was until he poured it onto the table and started hunting the train car for a piece of paper to roll. That was when I dipped a napkin into the pitcher of water and wiped the drugs off the table, and snatched the bag and dumped both out the window. Patch stared at me for a bit until I told him I wanted his help.

"What do you want, sweetie?" he asked me, touching my chin, his eyes cold.

"Don't you dare touch me, first of all," I slapped his hand away, "and second, I need your help. Much as I'd like to throw _you_ out the window, we—"

"Leave me out of this," Milo, my idiot of a district partner, said quickly, looking away from me. His eyes were red and puffy. Obviously he'd been crying.

"Fine," I squinted at him. " _I_ need your help. The odds are one in 18 that I'll come home, which are not bad chances, and I don't even have to kill one of them." I smiled at him for all I was worth.

"What, so you're not counting me?" Milo said. He really should have been more mature, for an eighteen year old. I was only 17, myself.

"Since _you_ refuse any help, I'm assuming you don't care. So yes, I'm not counting you." I narrowed my eyes at him.

"Fuck you." He said, standing and throwing something, probably a cookie, to the floor. His eyes started welling with tears. His mouth trembled. "You are a bitch. An insensitive bitch."

"I'm being practical," I said indifferently, turning away from him, partly because looking at him made me angry, partly because looking at him starting to cry made me want to cry. "It's going to help me win." He stormed out of the compartment.

Patch whistled. I looked back at him, and he was clapping. "Let's hear it for Miss Sensitivity." More whistling. "Really, spot on."

"What did I do wrong?" I asked him.

Patch stared at me for a long time before he said, "He's going to die and you won't."

* * *

 _now_

Patch leads me outside to the car, where Bonnie is sitting in the front seat, staring determinedly ahead. I know in a few minutes she'll forgive me, she'll get excited and caught up in the details of my escape from President Snow's mansion, to whom I'll only have to say a brief hello and goodbye before I'm whisked away to the Training Center to take a nap before the actress who's playing me leaves the party to go home. Sure enough, as the car moves slowly through the Capitol, Bonnie begins to talk excitedly about the festivities that will take place in District 9 upon my arrival. I tune her out, though. I'm thinking about my nap. I look over to Patch to give him a knowing smile, but he's already asleep, leaning against the window. I roll my eyes. Patch is excellent at falling asleep whenever he wants to. Sometimes I used to joke that if Patch was a god, he'd be the god of napping.

The car pulls up to President Snow's mansion, and I have to get out to appear on camera as though I'm going to actually stay at the party. Bonnie whisks me into the mansion before any of the photographers have any idea that I'm even out of the car, and directs me, though it feels more like her pushing me, to a dressing room where the actress who will be playing me awaits. My prep team, Delphi, Huck, and Swann, take a polaroid photo of me and then swarm the actress to make her makeup exactly like mine. Bonnie urges me out of my clothing and presses plain clothes into my arms. I duck into a corner to change, and then escape the chaos of the room.

The door opens to a wide, empty corridor, which gives way to an empty courtyard. For a moment, I'm alone. It's cold out, but it's not snowing. A thin blanket of snow covers the ground of the courtyard, and the wind is chilly. Bonnie's only given me a thin black shirt and pants, so I'm shivering. The sky is dark, even though it's very early in the evening. Even though it's freezing outside, I stand still, taking in the silence. I haven't been alone since the beginning of the Victory Tour.

I send my thoughts back home to District 9. My parents and older brother have been living in the Victor's Village since before I even got home from the Capitol. It was a relief to not have to worry about being hungry, for once. One of the good things about being from District 9 is that while we are poor, the Capitol often overlooks us. Our Peacekeepers are lenient, they let people off with a warning when they've stolen grain because we are so poorly fed in our district. With my victory, everyone in the district gets a break because of the food from the Capitol. With my victory, coming so soon after Patch's win five years ago, the people in the District have been well fed. It feels incredible to watch everyone eat like they have enough, because they actually do.

"It's good to see you, Ms Feld," someone says. Almost immediately my heart starts quickening its pace, my right hand drops to my side, where I keep my knife, and I feel warm, even though it's cold outside. My eyes search hungrily for the speaker, my fingers ache for a target, for warm flesh, to sink my knife into…

Then, all at once, President Snow appears, and I'm momentarily confused until I remember. I let my arm relax, and my heart does not slow, but I recognize that there is no threat. I am not in the Hunger Games. No one, at least, no one that I am aware of, is trying to kill me or hurt me.

"Apologies," President Snow says. "I didn't mean to frighten you."

Now that I'm not trying to fumble around for a non-existent knife, I take a good look at President Snow. He's wearing a suit that, for lack of a better term, suits his sharp frame. His hair is dark and neat, and his facial hair lends itself to a face with handsome, almost regal, features. He's smiling kindly at me, but I am not close enough to his face to be able to tell if his smile is genuine. He's leaning against the wall of his own home, hands in his pockets. If I were anyone other than a victor of the Hunger Games, I would be scared of him, but I know how to hurt people without anything sharp on me.

"It's alright," I say. My heart begins to slow, so it doesn't feel so much like a bunch of wild animals pounding my chest as they pass me by. "Instincts from the Games, I imagine many victors have trouble with them." All of what I've said is true, but it still feels like I'm doing everything wrong just by speaking to him. Snow nods.

"I merely wanted to offer my congratulations," he says quietly, and he looks down. It occurs to me, then, that Snow is far younger than he acts. By the look of it, he's only in his twenties, which isn't much older than I am. My heart starts pounding in my chest again.

"Thank you," I reply. "I'm sorry I won't be at the party tonight," I gesture vaguely to the house. I can hear the violinists, faintly, tuning up for their performance. It sounds exquisite, it almost makes me want to ask Bonnie if I can't go. The food will be excellent, after all.

"That's alright," Snow says, "I won't be there either. I have much too much to do. Paperwork and such." I nod, though he isn't looking at me. This is the first time I've ever spoken to the President without anyone watching, and he's acting like we're old friends merely catching up. I feel, at the same time, like my heart wants to burst out of my chest, and like I want to throw up. For a whole minute, which is longer than any other minute I've ever endured in my life, we both stand there, as still as statues, as though the ancient monster Medusa has risen from the dead and paralyzed us both.

Snow unfreezes and says, "Good luck, Ms Feld, at the Games next year." He turns around swiftly, his dress shoes clacking across the marble floor, echoing across the courtyard and bouncing back in all different directions. It jars me from my positions as well, and I turn around to go back inside the dressing room. "I hope," I hear Snow say, so I turn around to look at him. He has his hand on the doorknob of a door I didn't notice before, and all but his head is facing away from me. He takes a deep breath. "I hope," he repeats, "that I will see you there."

He exits the courtyard, closing the door quietly behind him. I open the door to the dressing room and shut myself inside. No one is in there, and it is dark. I take a deep breath, and sink down against the wall, letting out the breath I wasn't even aware I was holding.

* * *

 _then_

It's still dark when I'm awoken. These days, though, my body wakes me if I hear even a leaf rattling in the wind. Still, I'm not going to let myself fall back asleep. Vigilance is how I will survive. So, as quietly and quickly as I can, I begin to move my limbs, which aren't even stiff from sleep because I've gotten used to waking up every other hour, and work myself down from the tree that I picked to sleep in last night. I'll be sad to leave it; it was a good one, steady, strong, and plenty of leaves that blocked the freezing winds that blew in at night. I maneuver the knife in my belt to rest near my left hand, where I'll easily be able to grab it and use it. I plant my back against the trunk of the tree and begin to check my surroundings, watching and listening carefully for any movement, ready to strike even a fly if it so much as moves a wing.

Despite my body being prepared, my mind is still a bit fuzzy. I must remind myself where I am every five minutes so I don't dissociate and lose any bit of focus. I am in the Hunger Games. I am still alive. I've killed three people. I am in the final six. No, the final five…the girl from 3 died yesterday. I'm only just remembering her face appearing in the death toll from last night. I wonder who killed her. The only ones left are me, the boy from 1, the girl from 4, and both from 7. I wonder if the boy from 1 and the girl from 4 are still working together, as the Careers. Without a doubt the two from 7 are working together, and it is very likely that the only Careers left in the Games are still allied. The odds, as the lone un-allied tribute left, are not in my favor. I try to shore up my knowledge about the remaining tributes. Thankfully, I have perfect recall of every tribute's training score. The boy from One received a 9, and the girl from Four a 10. The boy from Seven got a 6, and the girl from Seven a 4. I'm beginning to wonder if they both are performing better in the actual Games than they revealed in training, because what I remember from training is that both tributes from Seven were abysmal at everything they tried, and at one point they even cried.

 _Snap!_ I bring my knife up, ready to strike. Even if it is just a small animal breaking a twig, I know without a doubt that both Careers are after me, at the very least the girl from Four. I personally killed her district partner, and the last time I spied on them she swore she was going to kill me. As a general rule, I tend to avoid people who want to kill me. I am just on the verge on convincing myself that it was only the wind that woke me when I hear a cannon.

It doesn't matter that I didn't hear any screaming or anything from the fight, I am running less than a second after the cannon goes off, searching for a very large tree to climb up. If anyone catches up to me before I find a tree to climb, I can just stick them with my knife. After a few seconds of sprinting through the foliage in the dark, I come across a tree that will do, and start climbing. I have to stick my knife in my belt, though, so I climb up the side of the tree that faces the opposite of the direction I came, so I can see if anyone is coming. I know for certain that there is no one behind me, because I am the only person on this side of the arena, and I definitely would have heard anyone passing by when I was sleeping. That, and no one will have a free shot at my back with anything sharp if they find me climbing up this tree.

My fingers must have permanent damage by now from climbing up so many trees, but I don't care. I haul myself up to a branch that's about twenty-five feet in the air; high enough so no one might see me if they were coming from a distance, but close enough so I can have good aim to throw my knife onto someone if they were to pass by.

I wait there for a good twenty minutes, knife poised to throw on anyone with deadly force, but no one comes. I am just about to haul myself further up the tree to start sleeping again when I hear the definite noise of someone running through my part of the woods, searching. I scurry back down to my branch, and I can hear the footsteps coming closer. From the gait, I can tell it's a boy. I let out a breath of relief. If it was the girl from 4 I wasn't sure I would have a chance at killing her before she spotted me. I squint in the dark, trying to see who it is. From the height of the figure, I'd guess it's the boy from 7. But I don't hear another pair of footsteps. Why is that? Have the two from 7 split? Is the girl from 7 dead? Did she kill one of the Careers? All I know for sure is that I am now in the final four and I'm not sure who the other two players are besides myself and the boy from 7.

I hold my breath and keep very still as he passes by my tree without stopping. Perhaps he thinks I'm even deeper in the woods. I wait until I can barely hear his footsteps approaching, and I start crawling along my branch to a different one. This way of traveling through the forest lends itself to more stealth, but less speed. If the girl from 4 saw me in this tree branch, the odds of me outrunning her through the trees would not be in my favor. But judging by the pace of the boy from 7, he wasn't trying to run from anyone, he was running to someone. To me.

Suddenly a theory forms in my head. The pair from 7 have split up, with the girl after the Careers and the boy after me. But why would the girl from 7 go after the Careers? It is very likely that as a girl, she would have the significant disadvantage of being smaller than both the Careers, while the boy from 7 is as big as the girl from 4 at least. If the girl from 7 is after the Careers, that must mean that she only plans, or planned, on fighting one tribute. That means that the Careers have separated as well. If not, then that means that the pair from 7 have made a serious mistake. Because once the girl from 7 kills one Career, the other one will kill her, no doubt.

 _Boom!_

There's no way that that cannon was for the boy from 7, unless he fell off a cliff, which, while it would be extremely helpful, is very unlikely. The sky is starting to lighten, no doubt because we're now in the final 3 and because the Gamemakers want the rest of us, whoever that happens to be, to find each other. This is usually when they would start to drive us together, with a mutt or something like that, but nothing is forthcoming. Which means my other enemy is close.

I stop moving in my tree.

From where I am, I can't see or hear the boy from 7, possibly because he has stopped moving, but if he's anywhere close, I'll see him soon enough, because the sun is rising fast. Sure enough, after a few minutes I can spot him about twenty yards from my tree, and it looks like he's trapped in something, because all his limbs are moving, as though swatting at something. It must be those sticky spider webs. I saw one tribute get stuck in those. It was the boy from 5. I know because I killed him myself.

I slide from my tree to the ground in total silence. Wherever the spider is, it is not near, probably because the Gamemakers want me to make this kill. But whoever the other tribute is, they must be lying in wait, so I must be silent and invisible, and ready to move as soon as I make the kill. The boy from 7 is facing away from me, and if I'm silent, he won't be able to cry for help. I decide I'll strike him through the head, which will kill him faster and ensure that he won't make any noise.

As quickly as I dare in the morning light, I hold my breath and approach the boy from seven still struggling in the mess of web. I raise my knife up high, because he is a lot taller than I am, and strike down.

 _Boom!_

The boy from 7 now hangs limply in the spider webs, but my weapon is lodged in his head. And whoever it is that remains alive is close, but not close enough to see me where I am, struggling to pull my knife from the boy's skull. Finally, just as I've managed to pull my knife out of the boy's head, I hear something behind me.

"Finally, we both have the proper weapons with which to end this." I turn around.

It's the girl from 4.

* * *

 _now_

Patch claims he has a headache and won't be attending the celebrations when we get back home, and he immediately retreats to his room. For a moment I think about following him, but then I decide against it. There wasn't anything about Snow's tone or demeanor that suggested that he was angry with me, and Patch is smart. He would warn me if something was wrong. Maybe I'm just being paranoid. I'm thinking that maybe I should ask one of the other District 9 victors when I get home about the whole situation, but Patch kept me alive in the Games. I trust him more than anyone else in my life, including my parents. I'm sure he wouldn't mind an interruption.

I mutter an excuse to Bonnie and follow Patch to his room on the train. I've only been inside it once, and once I enter his room, I remember why. I wrinkle my nose up from the stink of marijuana. Patch claims that marijuana is the only type of drug that he has ever done, though I remember from the day of the reaping that he was about to snort a white powder, so I don't believe him.

Patch doesn't look up from where he's sprawled on his bed. I guess he really did have a headache. "Bonnie, what is it?"

"It's not Bonnie," I say.

"Oh?" Patch hauls himself into a sitting position and stares at me. "Oh," he says. "What do you want?" I don't budge from my place in the doorway. I've gotten very used to standing still, having done that in the Games far too often.

"What do you want?" Patch repeats.

I look down and shrug. We're both silent for a minute.

"Close the door," Patch says, running a hand through his hair and flopping back on his bed, scooching over to make room for me. The room isn't being filmed, but we've always suspected that there are microphones listening in, so when I lay down next to Patch on his bed, I do it quietly.

Patch holds up an impressive looking tool that I don't care to describe. I furrow my eyebrows. He rolls his eyes. He holds down a button on the tool and points it in the corners of the room. "Alright, what's up?"

"President Snow approached me before the party."

Patch closes his eyes and rubs them, like he's tired of me being so paranoid. He sighs heavily and stares at me for a moment before replying. "Okay." Patch says. "Well, did he say anything threatening? He tends to make threats if he's angry at you."

"He's angry at me?" I say anxiously. I feel my heart quicken.

"No," Patch sighs again. "Angry at people in general."

"Oh," I say, and feel my cheeks heat up. "No." I say tentatively. "I guess not."

"Well, then he's probably not angry at you. Listen," Patch sits up, "the Capitol tends to ignore District 9, because we're very poor, and our victors come few and far between. We're non threatening, and we tend to keep our mouths shut. As long as you keep your mouth shut and look happy on camera, I'm sure you're going to be fine."

"Okay." I whisper and nod, closing my eyes. For a while we just lay there, and then I feel something on my head. I would react differently if I didn't know what it was. Patch strokes my hair softly, and I feel myself relaxing into his arms, and as I listen to his heartbeat, which is strong and steady, I feel my own heart begin to match the pace of his.

* * *

 _then_

I almost forgot about my first encounter with Patch. Not on the stage, listening to him breathe heavily through the rest of the reaping, not on the train when I threw his drugs out of the window. The memory worms its way through my mind as I begin to fall asleep next to Patch, and just before my consciousness falls victim to another nightmare, I remember when I first met Patch face-to-face.

It was a warm day in the harvest season. The Games had concluded a few weeks ago, so everything was relatively calm in the district, except for the fact that we had to be working from sunup till sundown to maximize the amount of grain we harvested. The sun that day wasn't as brutal as usual, and I remember having just enough money to buy some of the cream that counteracted the burns we got from standing under the sun for so long. In fact, it was still kind of light outside, but our supervisor had let us out early.

My old house was small, just big enough for my parents, my older brother, and me, and it's not far from the square of District 9. I was walking home from work, having already separated from my friends who lived on the other side of the District. I was almost at my door when I heard someone groaning. I turned around and saw a figure, obviously a drunk figure, stumbling in my direction. I rolled my eyes and approached the person, figuring I might as well help them get back home before any Peacekeepers find them and arrest them for disorderly conduct or whatever.

"Excuse me," I said cautiously, "are you alright?"

As I got closer, I could make out some features of the drunk person. Tall, muscular, haphazardly dressed. They waved me off.

"'M fine," the figure said, and I didn't recognize the rough voice immediately. "Just been drinking a bit," the figure continued, gesturing wildly to the sky, though I wasn't sure what the sky had to do with this person drinking. Finally, I could see the person's face. It took me a few moments to place them.

"You're Patch," I said, and relief flooded me. This man is harmless, rich, and needed my help getting home. He wasn't going to assault me or rape me, as my mother often claimed would happen if I approached someone drunk in the street at night. "Why are you outside so late?" I asked him, though I wasn't really expecting a clear answer. Technically, Patch could do whatever he wanted. He'd won the Games four and a half years ago and was most often seen high or getting high. It wasn't often that he drunk, but I guess there's a first time for everything.

"I been thinking," he slurred, "why is it that all the people in this district are…" he seemed to ponder for a moment. "Ugly?" he finished, with a decisive nod. I stood there, stunned.

"Um…"

"Except for you," Patch continued, not seeming to hear me. I decided to stay silent. "You're pretty, uh, what's your name?"

"Lena."

"You're pretty, Rachel!" I couldn't think of who he thought he was talking to, because Rachel was nowhere close to what my name is. Patch flashed me a wide smile.

"You're not going to remember any of this, are you?" I said to him as his posture sagged even more. Patch's smile turned lopsided and upset, and his brows furrowed. It looked like he was thinking, and it looked like it was taking him more effort to do that than to stand upright, of which he was doing a poor job. I put my things on the ground so I could catch him when he fell, which I could tell would be soon.

"No, probably not," he muttered, and then he fell over entirely, and I caught him. Even though he was dense and my arms were spindly and weak, I managed to haul him into an upright position. I picked up my bag and started the short trek to the Victor's Village, though I had no idea which house his would be.

Thankfully, I didn't get far before Demeter, one of the older victors of District 9, ran up to greet me at the gates to the Victor's Village. She won about thirty years ago, and is somehow still sober. Her arms were strong so she was able to support Patch better than I was. She pressed some coins into my hands, "For your trouble," she told me, and sent me back home with a large loaf of bread and a canister of milk. I was thankful, but still a bit puzzled by my interaction with Patch. Who was he talking about? Who is Rachel? Why did he confuse me with her? Unfortunately, I didn't think I'd get the chance to ask Patch what he meant because there's no way he would've remembered that night.

* * *

 _now_

"Lena." The voice is soft, but insistent. I know it's a friendly voice, because it's one I recognize. Patch.

"Lena," Patch repeats, and my eyes open. He's staring down at me, but he's particularly blurry. I breathe in deeply and blink a few times, and he comes into focus. "You have to go back into your own bed now. We're going to be home soon." I sit up and feel a hand on my back, and jerk away instinctively from it. "Sorry, I forgot." Patch mumbles, but he puts his hand back and buries his face in the crook of my elbow. I sit there for a minute longer, taking in the early morning light and the quiet of the train, just breathing.

"Okay," I say, and I swing my legs out of the bed. It's difficult to move from the bed because it's so warm and the carpet on the floor is not, so I sit there for another minute before Patch complains that someone will see us. "Okay, okay, I'm moving," I say, and I grab my robe from the floor and retreat from his room. I shuffle slowly to the dining car to grab a glass of water and to get a glimpse of home.

Just as I'm sitting down, Bonnie bursts into the compartment. "Oh!" she exclaims. "I was just about to go wake you and Patch for breakfast!" I shrug. "Well I guess I will go wake Patch up, then!"

"Don't bother, he's already up." I wave her away, keeping my eyes fixed on the horizon.

"Oh?" Bonnie says.

"Yeah, neither of us could sleep so we talked for a little while," I say, taking another sip of water.

"Well, I'm going to go find him anyways, dear. The food should be here any moment, and when I come back with Patch we will go over today's schedule. It's such an exciting day, Lena!" It's moments like these that I wonder how this woman functions without caffeine in the morning. She disappears into the next compartment and I rest my chin on the table.

Home. It's been almost two weeks since I was home. It's the longest I've been away since I went to the Capitol for the Games, which was for just over a month. Thankfully, the cameras will be off us soon, and Patch and I, and the rest of the District 9 victors, can relax. Historically, as people forced to kill children on camera, we don't enjoy the spotlight as well as some of the other Victors, like the people from One, Two, and Four, even some other Districts.

It's never easy to be on camera. Everyone expects you to be 100% for 100% of the time. I used to want to be a television star when I was younger. I didn't realize that the reality of it was so much harder than I thought.

"…I told you Bonnie, I am not wearing any hat at all when we get back to Nine, especially not _that_ hat. I am going home to take a nap!"

Patch and Bonnie burst into the compartment. Well, Patch looks like he's dragging himself out of the depths of hell, and Bonnie bursts in on her heels, huffing and puffing, clutching a ridiculous looking hat in her hands. She looks upset and Patch looks tired. It's such a common sight that I tune them out while they argue out whatever it is they're arguing about this time.

Breakfast today will be short, since we're almost home, but still I dig in, because it will be a while before I'm treated to food from the Capitol. Eggs so fragile that they burst when you poke them right; pancakes infused with champagne and stuffed with chocolate spread; waffles moulded into decadent shapes and topped with fresh fruit. I can only think of all my friends back home who would see this food as a rare treat, as a miracle, even, and not as a regular occurrence, and that is what compels me to eat as much as I can.

"…she doesn't like it either, do you, Lena?" Patch says angrily, his brow furrowed. Patch and Bonnie are still arguing about the hat. They look at me expectantly for an answer. I pick up the sandwich I've made of the eggs and some toast and take a huge bite, considering both of them. On the one hand, the hat Bonnie's holding _is_ ridiculous, and forcing Patch into it would be completely humiliating. On the other hand, when Patch is angry, he aggravates this cute little scar in between his eyebrows that's only visible when he furrows his brows, and honestly, I could do with some entertainment today.

I smirk at Patch. "Honestly, Bonnie, I agree with you. That hat would look great on you, Patch," I say, and I take another bite of my sandwich. Now Patch looks more amused and angry than just angry. He snatches the hat from Bonnie's hands and jams it on his head.

"Fine," he says, his lips baring a small smile. "What about that beautiful evening gown Cass showed me the other night? The one he almost threw out because you said it was too beautiful, Lena? I think that would look great on you tonight," he's definitely smirking now, and my jaw is dropped.

"Fine," I say after a moment, regaining my composure and smirking right back at him. He leans in to me.

"Fine."

"Fine."

"Fine."

"Fine." We're nose to nose now.

Bonnie doesn't seem to notice. She's too busy pulling out a small device that I recognize as a phone and dialing a number. "Really, Lena? That's fantastic! I'm getting Cass on the phone right now, maybe he still has time to salvage the dress for tonight before the official celebrations start!"

"Okay, Bonnie, I'm going to change into better clothing to greet the District," I say, and I take my plate of egg sandwich and strawberries and leave the room. I can almost feel Patch's eyes on me as I leave the room.

I'm thinking maybe I should savor these next few months without the cameras.

The next hour and a half is a blur - changing and putting on the ridiculous hat Bonnie's chosen for me, greeting the district and the cameras at the train station, and being whisked away to the mayor's house to get ready for the celebration tonight. Patch goes home, waving off Bonnie's offer to get ready into clothes that have been prepared for him at the mayor's house. As he throws the clothes haphazardly over his shoulder, I see Bonnie flinch, and I have to cover my mouth with my hand so she doesn't see me laughing. I don't even know why Bonnie's bothered to give him clothes to begin with. He's probably going to stay at home and get high, like he usually does. That doesn't stop me from lingering too long outside the mayor's house watching him walk back home to the Victor's Village.

Then, "Lena, come inside! You have lots of work to get done!" I roll my eyes and go back inside. All at once, my prep team is crowding me, trying to get my hair, nails, and makeup done, all the while shoving me into a evening gown, and it gets kind of claustrophobic, so I mention to Bonnie that I'd like to meditate (she's been obsessed with yoga and meditation lately) and she orders everyone out so I can relax.

After they leave the room, I do sit down on the floor cross-legged, trying to control my breathing. I guess after asking to be alone so often I've convinced myself that being alone is the only way I can be calm.

Strangely, I think of a time before I was reaped for the Games, of when I first encountered Patch face-to-face. It was a few months before the Games where I was reaped. He was drunk, I was tired, and he was rambling about how everyone in the district is ugly. Except for me. That thought brings heat to my cheeks, and then I remember he thought he was talking to someone named Rachel. Still, it's nice to think about sometimes.

Bonnie bursts into the room, telling me that I have to come outside for the dinner right now do I seriously want to disrespect the mayor of District 9 and all the Capitol officials that have showed up for tonight's event? So I walk out of the room as gracefully as I can and sit down and eat dinner, scanning the table, but Patch isn't there. I end up answering questions distractedly because I'm watching the door almost obsessively because maybe Patch will come in late and sit and have dinner with us but he never comes.

By the time I'm home and in bed I feel a strange pressure on my chest, but at the same time I feel completely empty. I can hear my heart beating hard, working overtime to fill the emptiness in my body. I feel the strangest urge to sob, but no tears are coming so it would just be a dry heave. Why do I feel like this? Why do I feel like I am missing out on something?

I think about it until I fall asleep, until I'm overwhelmed by a dreamland that makes no sense, a dreamland that overwhelms my thoughts of meditation, home, and Patch.

* * *

 _then_

"Say it again out loud, it'll help."

I shake my head. Nothing will help me right now. My hands are shaking beyond control, my entire core is a leaf in the wind in the fall. And in an hour, the wind might have blow me into a river and I'll have sunk so far that no one can rescue me. If I tried to open my mouth right now, I'm sure I'd just dissolve into tears and I can't risk losing any water. So I just keep my eyes closed. Maybe I'll fall asleep and forget about this for a while.

I feel a hand on my back. I wonder, if, in a few months, if I get out of this, I will flinch if anyone touches me. Because in the Games, any physical contact could mean that I will die at any second. But right now, it's okay. I know Cass is just trying to help.

"Come on, Lena, just once. I promise it will help." He's rubbing my back, but nothing can prepare me for death in the Games because no one who is alive knows what it's like. But I say it anyways.

"Run. Run until you can't anymore, and hide if you need to. Be quick, be quiet, and be near water. Until you find a weapon, run." I say, and though I don't cry, I feel a strange sensation in my throat, like I might choke if I say anything else. Cass fills up a glass with water and tells me to drink it. It helps with the choking feeling, but not with the dread.

"That's good, Lena," Cass says. "That's really good. Okay, now just keep repeating it in your head. Remember, we have some time until they send your clothes and then we have to wait for them to tell you to launch. Don't think about anything else except Patch's instructions."

Patch. I close my eyes and think about Patch for a second. A few months ago, I ran into him when he was drunk in the street. I thought, in fact, I prayed, that I wouldn't ever have to face him again. I thought about it so many times that I began to hate him. Whenever I saw him across the square, at the market, my blood began to boil, and my ears got red the way they always do when I'm angry or upset. But it happened. I came face to face with him on the train, and I threw his drugs out the window. Now, Patch is my last chance at surviving if I'm close to death in the arena. At least, close to death by natural causes. There's no way he can save me from being hacked to death by another tribute. That, I'll have to rely on my own training and instincts. I just hope that they're good enough.

Cass jars me out of my thoughts to change into the clothes for the Games. Strangely, I don't start shaking once he reminds me that I might be less than half an hour from death. My hands are strong, sure, and steady. _Run. Hide. Quick. Quiet. Water. Run._ I repeat it in my head, I mouth the words, like a prayer, except I'm praying to myself that I can do all those things. I feel a sudden surge of strength that passes just as quickly as it entered my body. I _will_ win the Games. I can't consider any other possibility, I _won't_.

I give Cass a big hug and tell him to give my best to Bonnie and to my prep team if I never see them again. I keep drinking water until I have to piss, and even after, I keep drinking water until I have to get onto the plate that will lift me to my death. Patch told me to drink water, because I can't control the next time I'm going to get water in the arena. I turn and face the wall because I don't want to watch my world go away slowly. I'd rather rip off the bandaid, so I put my hand on the glass and Cass puts his hand there too, and then I turn around before the plate starts lifting me up.

 _Just keep on repeating your list in your head._

Run. Hide. Quick. Quiet. Water. Run.

Run. Hide. Quick. Quiet. Water. Run.

These are the words that will save my life.

 _Those were the words that saved my life._

* * *

 **A/N: Real human speaking. As soon as I have finished transcribing the following journal entry, I shall upload it in its entirety to this medium. If you have any issues at all with this story, leave a comment below and I will do my best to mediate. I cannot promise a happy outcome.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: What follows is a journal entry, date unknown, from the journal of Lena Feld, victor of the 42nd Hunger Games. I do not claim ownership over the possessions or stories that have been recorded thus far. I am merely following the instructions of a note with a signature from an unknown person (currently it is being analyzed by my lab, and it is being compared to other pieces of writing and documents from the time) instructing that whenever this journal was found, that its contents be published. I will provide any updates as to the nature of the note I found alongside this journal as information becomes available. I advise you to read the following entry with caution.**

* * *

 _now_

Patch only won the Hunger Games six years ago, so I have vague memories of what District 9 celebrations with the Capitol are like. Since it's celebrated during the Harvest Festival, we have our winter carnival, and even though it's cold outside, the air is filled with the warmth and joy of a year of ease for everyone in the District. Since this is the last time the cameras are going to be on me before the next Games, I decide to go ahead and enjoy the attention that I'm getting. Patch told me not to worry about Snow, so I'm going to take advantage of the food we're getting, because all the people in the district won't be able to once they stop receiving the gifts I earned for winning the Games, so the least I can do is eat as much food and have as much fun as I can. My brother, Omri, walks with me hand-in-hand, to the square from the Victor's Village.

The carnival looks like it does every year: with all the games like bobbing for apples and tossing rings around the bottles, except the decorations are over-the-top, and there is light everywhere. Lanterns, torches, lights on strings. And the whole district must be here. With the promise of no worries for tonight about food, it's no surprise. The carnival is the one time a year where I feel truly happy, and even the Capitol presence can't spoil my mood. I eat a variety of fried foods, buy a cup of apple cider, and play the games, and if I win, I promise myself that I will give the prizes to a little kid.

Omri pulls me aside after an hour to introduce me to his girlfriend. Her name is Rowan, and her hair is wavy and blonde, and her smile is wide.

"Nice to meet you," she says, extending her hand to mine, and when I shake her hand, she squeezes it, almost reassuringly. I look at Omri and he's looking at her with the biggest, goofiest smile on his face.

"It's so nice to meet you as well," I say. I let go of Omri and loop my arm through Rowan's. "So let me hear about everything. Omri hasn't told me anything and I'm _dying_ to know what my brother is like when he's not around me." Rowan laughs and shoots a look at Omri. I glance back at him and see that he looks nervous. Good.

"So when did you two start dating? I've been home for a few months but I guess I must have missed it." I say to her. Rowan laughs again, and it's a really nice laugh.

"We started dating last year, maybe a few months before your Games," she says, "but I understand that you weren't aware until recently. Omri's kind of private like that."

"Really?" I say. Omri has always been an open book to me. Or maybe I'm just the type to inspire fear in people and make them spill their secrets to me. I open my mouth to say that Omri can never keep anything from me, but then I realize that that's not true. I've always relied on my ability to get people to trust me, but apparently that talent did not stretch to my brother. Omri has become a stranger. Or maybe he's always been a stranger.

Rowan laughs, and continues on about some of the more memorable parts of her relationship with my brother but I'm no longer listening. My brother…a stranger. It's made me think of Patch. One moment he was an absolute stranger to me, and I wished with my whole heart that I'd never have to meet him, and then the next my very being was depending on him, and I was forced to trust him with my life. After I came home, we got close simply because I couldn't bear to talk to my friends again. Before I was reaped, my friends were silly, giggly, and acted like nothing mattered. They weren't be able to support me after I won the Games. The only person I could talk to about it was Patch. He became one of my closest friends, maybe even something more. But I know nothing about him other than his whole family abandoned him after his Games and that he lives alone.

I excuse myself from Rowan and scan the square for Patch, eventually honing in on a figure slumped on a stool clutching what looks to be a bottle of alcohol. I approach the stall and sit down next to him, ordering a bottle of something light and a glass of water. It's Patch. I can tell by the ratty plaid shirt and jeans riddled with holes. No one else would take care to look so careless tonight. When he hears my voice, he raises his head and looks at me blearily.

"I thought you didn't drink," he says, his voice low and rough. He raises the bottle to his lips but I snatch it away from him. The stall owner sets a glass of water in front of Patch's face and Patch frowns.

"I thought _you_ didn't drink," I say accusingly, taking the tall glass of beer offered to me and sipping. "The day I met you I had to throw your drugs out of a window." Patch blinks, then turns his face forward, apparently bored. I take a deep breath, and my heart is pounding but I go on anyways. "You know, I was thinking, and I realized that I don't know anything about you."

Patch looks at me again, and then he sits up and drinks a bit of the water. "What do you mean?"

I take a deep breath. I don't mean to say what I say next, but what comes out is, "My brother. I feel like I barely know him. And he's my brother." I pause. "Someone I trust so much should…I mean…you know what I mean, right?" I look at him solemnly. After a moment, Patch nods slowly.

"Yeah. I know what you mean." He finishes off the water. "You want to get out of here?"

I nod. Patch gets up from his seat, digs into his pocket and slaps a few coins on the counter and then saunters off into the darkness. I pull some more coins out of my pocket and place them on the counter, flashing a quick smile to the stall owner and telling him that he can give my beer away, then I run after Patch.

When I catch up to Patch's fast pace, I tap his arm lightly, forgetting, and he jumps about a foot away from me. The fear leaves his eyes as quickly as it had flood them, and he takes my hand again in reassurance.

"Sorry," I say softly. "Just for a second…I forgot."

"I know, Lena," Patch grumbles. "No need to be so dramatic about it." He averts his eyes but squeezes my hand. Patch isn't great with words. Being an introvert and a pessimist will do that to you. Actually, just being a victor will do that to you. No one wants to talk much after they've come back from murdering children. I wasn't a saint before I was reaped, but I was a decent person. Loud, annoying, probably, and inherently social. But the Games strips you of who you might've been before the Games. Maybe some victors are more successful being themselves, but Patch and I, at least, are not those people. Demeter, and Cara, the other victors from District 9 who are still alive, aren't particularly optimistic either, but neither of them drink themselves into a stupor like Patch does. Considering other Districts' records, like District 6 or District 10, whose victors clench their fists around bottles of alcohol and baggies of drugs until the day that they die, we've been lucky to elude the clutches of material escapism. We're lucky Patch only drinks every few weeks, when he has depressive mood swings. And it's no wonder that tonight is one of those nights, when the Capitol presence is so pervasive.

"So…" Patch starts, not letting go of my hand, "your brother. Do I need to take a swing at him?" His tone is joking, but Patch isn't kidding. Patch rarely kids about hitting people, especially when it's on the behalf of people he took painstaking efforts to keep alive.

"No, nothing like that." I say. "I just…" I take a deep breath, unsure how to phrase exactly what I want to say. "He has a girlfriend. Who I knew about. But…I didn't know that he loved her. He's my brother. He told me everything."

"And, what? Now that you're a hardened victor of the Hunger Games you're scared that he doesn't trust you anymore? That he doesn't love you?" Patch says. I don't want to answer his question, because he's probably going to go off on a rant about how I'm wrong to assume that it's my fault that this is all happening, that this is the Capitol's fault for having the Hunger Games, it's the Capitol's fault that my name was called out that miserable day, scribbled onto a piece of cardboard for the whole world to see. I look at Patch and can already tell that we both know how the conversation will go if I say yes.

"We don't have to talk about it anymore." I say instead, though we've barely touched on the topic, and it was basically the whole reason Patch and I fled the carnival. Great. Now not only have I wasted the entire district's night, I've wasted Patch's night as well, who I know would've been perfectly happy to sit at that stall the rest of the night until some unlucky Capitol attendant had to haul his drunk ass back home (and I don't care that I've wasted the Capitol's night and money. District 9 had been running this carnival for years before the Capitol intervened.).

Patch and I walk in silence among a hard-packed dirt road lit by lanterns, leaving the warmth and sounds of the carnival behind us. I don't know where we seem to be going, but Patch's feet must have a path, because he's starting to walk faster, with purpose. We walk past the Victor's Village, where I thought we were escaping to, but Patch evidently has different ideas. The center of town, though brightly lit by hanging lanterns and lights and filled with colorful banners and flags swaying in the gentle breeze, is empty. I've learned not to question Patch, so I don't ask where we're going, I just squeeze his hand occasionally so he remembers that I'm still with him. He looks at me every time with an unreadable expression, squeezing my hand tight.

I wonder how he can stand upright even after drinking. I can barely hold down a tiny glass of wine. I wonder if he knows where he's going. I wonder if he's going to get us lost or hurt or killed, then I remember that I trusted this man to keep me alive in less than pleasant circumstances, so I just follow him, trying not to think about the number of horrors that could befall us presently.

As we slowly wind through the streets, I pick up the fact that we're in a residential area. The streets are clean and the yards are tidy, but all the houses are worn, sagging, and tired looking. Some beaten up paper pulp floats through the streets occasionally, publicizing the upcoming carnival, and we come across an unopened can of beans rolling around on the street, which we set on someone's front porch. But no one is here. All the lights in all the houses are off, and there is no light to guide us besides flickering lamps every other block, but Patch still walks with a surety and grace that I could only compare to someone who is on the beaten path towards home.

* * *

 _then_

My heart is pounding so hard I can literally see my dress rising and falling with every beat. I don't think I've ever been this nervous in my entire life. Of course, I say that every year, and every year the relief that floods my nerves is just a bit sweeter. It means I'm closer than ever to redemption, to safety. It means that every year my odds of dying of natural causes goes up, rather than death by an underage citizen of Panem.

Deirdre, who has six little brothers and just as much, if not more, to lose as I do, squeezes my hand in reassurance. I look at her and smile, but I don't really see her face. I can see her pale complexion, her blonde hair surrounding her face, and something resembling a mouth curved into a smile, but I can't really see anything other than being stabbed to death by a crazed teenager.

"Lena, where's your mind right now?" she says.

"Inside the Games, being bashed to death with a giant hammer." I say, and quickly cover my mouth. The Capitol attendants are nearby, and I don't want them to hear me. Deirdre laughs, which brings her into focus. The wrinkles of concern on her forehead and her clear blue eyes filled with worry sharpen into reality. "Sorry, I get pissy during the reaping." I say.

"I know, Lena," Deirdre says. "It's my turn to keep you here in reality land." She smiles widely. "We're 17, almost our last year, we're going to be fine." I know she's itching to turn back and look for her three younger brothers who are eligible this year (one is 16, one is 13, the last one is 12). I really want to hear her say that it's going to be okay, because Deirdre has a tendency to be right about everything, but I know she wants to see her brothers, so I smile like everything is better, but my blood pressure tells a different story. She turns back to locate her siblings while I try to get myself to calm the hell down.

Soon enough, with our luck, it starts pouring rain. Thankfully, Deirdre brought two nylon jackets (how that girl remembers everything is difficult to say) so I'm dry but shivering, and I can't see two feet in front of me. Of course, the Capitol brought a marquee to cover the stage, so everyone up there is dry. Unfortunately, now I can see everyone on the stage as clear as day (not this day, obviously). Including the most recent of District 9's victors, Patch Manning.

Lately, Patch has taken over mentoring duties to give the other victors a chance to rest. New victors are thought to be lucky. People are very superstitious when it comes to new victors; old victors are thought to have a lucky year when they bring someone home. So everyone stands in the same places they did when Patch was reaped, everyone is quiet, waiting with bated breath for the reaping to start, not daring to disrespect the process. Most of all, people are looking at Patch like he's a god, not that he's managed to bring anyone home in the five years since his victory. But no one expects him to. After all, he's just come back from the arena, you can't expect a man to be in coaching mode right away. But in another five years, the people of District 9 will no longer look at him like he's a god, because there's no way that he will bring someone home. They will look at him like he's old already, and run out of luck, and he will believe it.

But not today.

Today everyone looks at him like he's a god.

Not me. My blood boils at the sight of him, my blood pressure begins to rise again, and I squeeze Deirdre's hand so tightly that she gives a small squeak and turns to look at me. "Lena, what—oh." When Deirdre sees who I'm staring at, she squeezes back just as tightly. Deirdre hates Patch with the same white-hot ferocity that I do. I'm not sure why, but as soon as he was crowned the victor of his Games, Deirdre has hated him. She's never told me exactly why, she always evades the question, but I get the feeling that it's deeply personal. Either way, she looks so angry that her face is red and she's grinding her teeth. It is so unlike Deirdre to look so angry at anyone or anything that I'm a bit shocked, and by the time she releases her teeth the reaping has already started.

We've missed the brunt of the mayor's speech, and no one can see the screens for the propagandist video they show every year, so the reaping goes relatively quickly. Bonnie Sawyer, our district escort, jumps up from her chair. Bonnie is a tiny woman, so she always wears the most ridiculous high heels, but other than that she's the most tame looking escort I've seen. She's wearing a pantsuit that leaves nothing to the imagination, and her nails are at least three inches long, but, thankfully, her clothes and hair are not brightly colored. It suits the mood of the district this year. Well, she matches the weather, at least.

Bonnie takes her sweet time marching over to the microphone, though it's probably because she doesn't want to fall over in her heels, and truth be told, she trips over a wire or something and almost falls, but miraculously regains her balance. A loud chirp emits from the speakers and then stops as abruptly as it started. When she reaches the microphone to speak, she is inaudible. We can see her lips moving and know exactly what she is saying now, because of all the rituals, but no one will know whose name she is going to call. Now there's all sorts of commotion, with people in well-tailored suits running around behind the stage where no one but us teenagers up front can see them trying to fix the damage that Bonnie Sawyer has wreaked upon the reaping. If it was anyone else (someone who lives in District Nine), they probably would've been shot. But Bonnie gives a short little laugh and touches a hand to her forehead like she is so embarrassed about the whole incident. She's blushing fiercely and trying to cover it up by pressing a tiny hand to her cheek but failing miserably. She steps carefully over to the reaping bowl filled with the girl's names, and I've been so preoccupied with laughing at her, trying to get as much joy from this situation as possible, that I've forgotten to be afraid. This woman has a godly power as well. We always talk about how the Capitol forces us to kill each other, that the Capitol is hell disguised as heaven. But Bonnie, and the other escorts, they have a different power to them. The slight turn of a hand could mean the difference between life and death for anyone here. If the Capitol is hell, then its escorts are the angels of death.

Hard as I try to hate this woman and everything she stands for, I am praying with every fiber of my being that her hand does not touch any slip of paper that contains my name. I am praying for this woman to take someone else's name out of the bowl, curse someone else with this fate. I am praying that she blesses me, that she gives me the rest of my life for the next year, because after next year, I am free.

Bonnie reaches her hand into the bowl, and she is so short that she is practically up to her armpit. My heart is still beating so hard and I'm squeezing Deirdre's hand so tightly that I can't even feel it anymore and I want to close my eyes until this whole thing is over but I can't because I'm fixated on the angel of death who may or may not carry my fate in her hands.

It's almost funny when she speaks into the microphone, because no one can hear her. The Capitol attendants (who else would have suits so well tailored to their bodies?) are still rushing about trying to find a replacement wire or microphone because even if Bonnie tried to raise her voice no one could hear her because the rain is gushing from the sky so thick and loud that I can barely hear my own breathing anymore. Once she reads the name, they all stop running and stare at Bonnie, and at the crowd, to see if anyone heard her. Nobody, not even the Peacekeepers, budges. My eyes are moving back and forth from Bonnie to the Peacekeepers to the Capitol attendants, when suddenly I get a sick feeling, like someone is watching me. I turn around, look at the masses of teens and betters, but everyone is still focused on the stage. And then when I turn back to face the stage again, for a second I swear Patch Manning is staring right at me. We lock eyes and I damn the fact that I can see his face so clearly. That makes me hate him even more.

There's a sort of commotion on stage, but Patch is still staring at me, and he's squinting, like he recognizes me, which is impossible because I can't have spoken to him more than once or twice (which is like an infinite amount of times compared to any other citizen of District Nine, who Patch probably doesn't speak to at all). His brows are furrowed, his lips are pursed, and he looks upset, but this doesn't concern me. All the victors look upset. They hate every part of this, no matter how hard they try to mask their hatred for it. But Patch looks especially upset, like he might take a swing at someone if they even looked at him funny.

My attention is drawn away to look at Bonnie. Someone has handed her a small, flimsy piece of cardboard and a black marker. She is clutching at the slip of paper like a vise, like her whole life depends on it rather than it on she. Everyone understands what will happen if she loses the paper, though none of us want to say it out loud.

When she has finished writing out the name on the sign, she once again, inaudibly, apologizes to the audience for her clumsiness, presumably. Then she holds up the sign. It takes a few seconds to sink in.

 _Magdalena Feld_.

Deirdre turns to me, her hand suddenly letting go of mine, and looks confused. "Magdalena Feld?" she whispers, the name awkward sounding in her mouth. "I don't know who that is, who is that?" She murmurs inaudibly to herself, and the wheels are turning in her mind, I can tell, because she suddenly remembers my last name, and the fact that the only other sibling I have who is eligible is a boy. She looks at me, mouth hanging open in shock, eyes filling with tears.

My heart still beats a tattoo against my chest, my neck is tingling, my spine is getting cold shocks, and my head is spinning. I am running in circles around this pig pen, I am collapsing into this spot, unmoving, I am swaying from side to side and my fate has changed forever. Because my full name is not Lena.

 _Magdalena Feld_.

I make eye contact with Patch on stage, and he looks at me, solemn faced. I take the hood off my head, determined to soak in this weather, quite literally, for what may be the last time. I take calm steps towards the edge of the pen and move it over my head. The tears are falling, but the good thing about today is that not one person will be able to tell. And thank god no one will hear anyone either, because I can hear Deirdre sobbing.

It's raining.

I raise my arms up, but still, no one is moving, and before I can think of what I'm doing, I'm lifting my arms up, closing my eyes, facing the downpour, and spinning in the rain.

* * *

 _now_

Eventually, Patch begins to slow down as we walk further into the depths of the streets. Neither of us has spoken a word since we left the carnival. Anyone else might've been frightened by this situation, but Patch and I communicated in the Games through special codes so we're used to not speaking. Some rich old lady in the Capitol gave Patch an old book about secret codes sometime after he was crowned a victor, and before I went into the arena, he taught me a few of them and how to not tip off the Capitol by doing so. The codes make me feel safer, like there's someone in the world out there who is looking out for me, but I don't need to use them right now since Patch would tell me if I needed to do anything.

Patch makes a turn down a street and stops on the corner, letting go of my hand and turning away from me, but he doesn't move. Tentatively, I take a step towards him and touch his shoulder, which he doesn't jerk away from. He just keeps looking towards something, and strange shadows flicker across his face.

Shadows. Patch is being bathed in some sort of light, a really bright light, so unlike this part of District 9, that even in the daylight it would've been strange to have that kind of light. A rich person must live there. But Patch did not come from riches. That much I know. Patch's tanned complexion and strong build told me that, because only the poorest kids in the District were tanned and strong. They had to, because when they weren't in school, they were working in the fields, trying to earn a few extra coins. So who is he looking at?

"Patch, what—?" Patch grabs my hand and pulls me back around the corner. His face is a blank slate, which infuriates me, because I'm an open book and it's so hard for me to conceal my feelings about anything. Patch is so closed off that even when he's trying to tell you something, you can't tell how he feels about what he's talking about. Sometimes it's good, but sometimes he has trouble expressing how he feels and ends up punching the walls out. It's almost embarrassing how often we have to call someone to fix the walls in Patch's house.

I can feel his muscles tensing up, like he's going to start punching the walls of someone's house soon, and I try rubbing his arm to get him to calm down. "Just tell me what's wrong, Patch. Take a deep breath." I rub his back soothingly, and I hear his breathing slow down, like he's coming down from a panic attack. Whatever or whoever is in that brightly lit house, it has seriously spooked him. But I've seen worse in him, honestly.

"You can tell me anything," I say softly, putting my lips close to his cheek. For a moment we're both silent, taking in the absence of space between us, wondering…

Then Patch stands up straight, muscles clenched again, and bursts out suddenly, "Ever since I was little, my parents had subscribed themselves to some religion. They thought it was holy and stuff, and there were all these rules and laws we had to adhere by. They would never break any of these laws, not even if their lives were being threatened." Patch takes a deep breath. "My whole family took it seriously, _I_ took it seriously, I was one of those crazy people who prayed every week and believed in a higher power and everything, and sometimes, and I'm not sure how we got permission, but as long as we weren't of reaping age, we were allowed to skip the reaping for religious reasons. I was sure that this way of life would be all I did for the rest of my life." A hint of a smile takes over Patch's face. He swallows hard and looks in the direction of the source of the light wistfully, almost.

Then he continues on, his face slowly becoming etched with deep lines as his frown deepens. "But suddenly, everything changed when I was reaped. I don't remember why, but I knew that I wanted to come home. I knew I wanted to stay alive. I was willing to do anything to come home. But one of the laws of that religion is not to kill anyone, even if it's to save your own life." Patch shakes his head, smiling, but it's not normal. It's almost like the smile of a madman, someone who has lost all inhibitions, someone who has been so deeply hurt that they must hurt in return. "The last time I saw my parents, when we were saying goodbye in the Justice Building, they told me that if I killed anyone, that they would disown me, no matter if I came back alive or dead. Nothing was more important to them than their rules, even their own son." I squeeze his hand, shocked by his words.

I can't even imagine what it would be like if my parents didn't support me. Sure, I killed people, but I considered that a necessary evil. If I had wanted absolution, I would've starved myself to death before I ever got to the Games. But I didn't want absolution. I wanted to stay alive. And I'm certain that Patch had considered his options, of course. Asking someone to volunteer in his place, desperate; throwing himself off the Training Center roof, or jumping off his plate the moment he was lifted into the arena. But, like any other sane person, the best course of action is to participate, and if you die, well, at least you died trying. People will remember your bravery, and they will favor your district in return for one hell of a show, and maybe then your own family will be saved. Luckily for Patch and I, we were just smart enough to stay alive. But Patch wasn't lucky enough to come home to open arms. Before he got home, the Capitol people had to scrounge up District 9 citizens to welcome him home, and even hire actors to be his parents and siblings.

"Of course, once the Games started, I knew I was going to have to kill people if I wanted to stay alive. Once I came home, the only person I saw at the train station was my little brother. He told me…he told me that my family never wanted to see me again. They wouldn't take any of my money, or any of the luxuries I had won for the whole District. And he said that the only reason he was there was because he was the least angry out of all of them." Patch looks down at where our hands intertwine. "I haven't seen anyone else from my family since before my Games."

As I take in his words, I silently thank my family for staying by side throughout everything. Whatever rules Patch broke, his family almost lost him. They should be grateful that he had the wits to survive what he went through. "Patch, I'm…I'm so sorry." I say, looking up at him. For a second, his eyes roam my face, and then he looks down.

"I've had six years to cope with the loss and not once has it gotten easier to deal with. It's just gotten easier to ignore." Patch says sadly. "Every time I see one of them, or go near this part of the District, I drink or get high. Not once since I saw my brother at the train station has anyone I knew in my childhood come to talk to me. They look away or turn around whenever, if ever, they see me." Patch squeezes my hand very tightly, closing his eyes. "I just…" Patch pauses, his eyes fluttering shut, before continuing, "Sometimes I just need to see their faces. To remind myself that this isn't a dream. That they really do hate me, that they're not all dead." Patch gives a short laugh. "Sometimes I pay people to put money in their collection tins. Shopkeepers and such, no one that has any connection to me. They'd know right away. I just…" Patch trails off, but he doesn't have to speak for me to understand what he means. That despite everything they've done to disconnect themselves from him, he still loves them.

Patch does not let go of my hand, and begins to move forward, around the corner, towards the house filled with light. He presses his body flat against the corner house's wall. He moves me to stand in front of him so he's not blocking my view.

The sight in front of me is truly extraordinary. A bunch of people all in black clothes, facing east, some with their eyes closed, murmuring, some bowing repeatedly, some sitting on low chairs, crying. The mood is somber in the house, almost like someone has died. I peer in closely, get a good look at the faces of the people, trying to look for Patch's family.

Instead, I find someone else.

Deirdre.

* * *

 _then_.

For the first time in almost two months, I wake up with the sun. The light filters in through the window slats in my new room, just the way I've always wanted it. At my old home, we always kept the windows shut, in case any pests infested our house. But the Victor's Village is far from the fields where the nastiest of creatures live. Because God forbid the Victors and their families should live like normal people. No, we will be remembered forever as not only the people who killed children for no good reason, but also as the people who lived in the nicest houses. Out of the 20 houses the Capitol built in the Victor's Village, only four victors and their families live in the houses.

I get out of bed, take a bath, brush my teeth and hair, and dress, and it hits me when I'm walking down the stairs. No cameras today. I promised myself I would do it today, the day the cameras left. I continue downstairs, remembering that I will not be able to find her until later in the afternoon, when she is done with her shift in the field.

"Lena?" my mother says when I finally arrive in the dining room for breakfast. "Just a reminder we're having dinner with Cara Emmers and Demeter Farro tonight at 5:30 pm."

I look at my mother. "Are we not inviting Patch?"

"Yes, dear. Seeing as he doesn't have a family, we're the best he's got." I smile and eat the eggs and toast my mother set in front of me.

"Did Omri and Dad already go to work?" I ask, even though I'm not interested. My parents and brother are convinced that I am psychologically intact, and that I truly was so injured beyond repair following the Games that the various doctors and surgeons needed extra time to fix me. They don't know about the days of therapy I was forced through. Usually they just plop a victor on the couch with Caesar, but apparently I was so messed up that Patch and Bonnie personally advocated for a Capitol-trained therapist. But since my family does not know that, I must pretend like I am fine. This includes asking stupid, redundant questions like this one.

My mother nods. "Yes, dear. They'll be back a little earlier than usual, since they worked late yesterday. So that they could be on time for dinner today." She smiles. I stand up and start to take my plate to the sink to rinse it off but my mother waves me away. "Go into town, see if you can get me a few of the things on my list before 4 pm." She points to a small piece of paper on the counter, which I grab as I head to the door, shrugging on my jacket. It's unusually cold for this part of September in District 9, and since I have the luxury of a jacket, I put it on, taking with me a small canvas bag.

It's windy outside, so my hair whips around my face, stinging me, but I ignore it in favor of crossing the lawn of our house briskly, to the house directly to our left, where Patch lives. I haven't seen him in two days. He refused to leave the house yesterday to see the cameras off, and I barely saw him the day before, probably because once he took a sip of drink Bonnie whisked him away to recover, and our paths didn't cross again. I knock on the door, waiting for him to answer, though Patch doesn't strike me as the type to answer the door of his own house before 10 am. I'm about to give up and make my way into town on my own when the door opens, and an unfamiliar young woman is standing in Patch's house, looking just as confused as I am.

"Lena Feld?" Of course she recognizes me. You'd be hard pressed to find a District 9 citizen who didn't recognize the second victor District 9 has had in less than 10 years.

"Yes?" I say, confused, though I am the one who has knocked on the door.

"Sorry, did you need something?" the woman asks, her brows creasing. I can tell from her accent and lack of audacious clothes that she is definitely not from the Capitol, and from her complexion, she is not someone who stays inside a lot. She is very tan, and her nose is a little red. So she works in the fields, laboring under the sun for long hours with nothing to protect her from the rays of the sun. But for some reason, today, she is in Patch's house. She can't be Patch's family, and she doesn't look like Cara or Demeter, the other two victors from 9. So she's either working for Patch or one of his friends. Which is weird, because other than me and a few others, Patch is not all that well-liked in the District, because he broke an unspeakable rule in the Games by killing his District partner. Of course, when he got back, everyone was grateful that he won the Games because it meant a year of ease, but the family of Patch's district partner swore to never accept anything from him, swore to hate him, and quite a few people agreed with them, so Patch isn't exactly the most popular victor in District 9.

"Yes," I say, "I wanted to speak to Patch." The woman smiles and holds open the door a little wider to let me in, and I step in, smoothing down my hair which has flown all over the place in the wind, shuddering at the sudden warmth of the house. I peer curiously at the woman, wondering who she could be when I hear Patch's voice.

"You know I don't get the chance to do this very often, seeing as they won't…" Patch's voice trails off as he sees me standing in the foyer. "Lena?" he sounds confused. "What's wrong?"

"The cameras left, I just wanted to say hi." I say quickly, because I know that the woman is watching me. Patch is wearing a nice shirt and pants, and his face is shaved and clean. His house is tidy, and I can smell food in the kitchen. This is unusual. Patch told me he cares little for his house, but I guess the Capitol had to clean up before the cameras visited. "Also, you're invited to dinner at my house tonight." I continue, my eyes roaming around the house. It's so clean in here.

"Okay." Patch says, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking down. "Is there anything else you needed?" Why is he avoiding eye contact with me? And is he blushing? I turn to the woman, whose face is carefully neutral.

"May I borrow him for a moment? I just need a quick word." I say. "Also, I don't believe we've met. I'm Lena." I take a step towards her, hold out my hand, and she takes it firmly and shakes.

"Rachel Whey," the woman responds. "I'm Patch's friend. It's…a pleasure to meet you after seeing your face on the tv screens for two months. Patch has told me a lot about you." She smiles, and I get the feeling that though the smile is genuine, she's glad to have had the element of surprise. She was in Patch's house and I wasn't. Lucky her. I turn to Patch and grab his hand, just because I can, and I lead him up the stairs.

All the houses in the Victor's Village are built the exact same way, so I know the way to the guest bedroom, and after Patch has come in, I close the door and sit on the bed. I can't help it. I burst out, "Who _exactly_ is that?" Because the name Rachel is familiar when it comes to Patch, and she's got to be important if she's in Patch's house and she isn't from the Capitol.

"What?" Patch says, ducking his head to avoid eye contact. But there's nowhere in here Patch can hide from me, so I slap his arm and repeat myself.

"Who is that and why is she in your house?" I demand. "And why is it so clean in here?" He looks at me, pale blue eyes scared.

"That's Rachel. She's my friend." Patch says, sitting in the chair next to the bureau and crossing his arms defensively. "She's the only person I knew from before my Games who will speak to me. And the Capitol cleaned up in here. Rachel was warming bread in the oven." He's avoiding one of my questions and my eyes.

"Why is she here?" I ask. I know that it's weird to be asking questions, but after what Patch told me on the train ride back here after my final interview in the Capitol after the Games, I have the right to ask any question I please.

"It doesn't matter," Patch says, dismissing me. "You clearly didn't come here to interrogate me about Rachel, so what did you want to ask me?" His eyes bore into mine now, demanding answers from me that have flown from my mind. I was planning on asking him to come to town with me, but clearly that's not going to happen. Instead I latch onto the one thing that has bothered me since I've been home, the only thing I can think to say, since Patch is right, the only reason I demanded alone time with him now is to find out why Rachel was here. So I latch onto that one thought that has been floating around my mind since the moment I looked out the windows to see the train station of District 9.

"My friend Deirdre isn't speaking to me." I say, and as soon as the words leave my mouth I know they are true.

Patch's face is solemn, unmoving. "What could I possibly do to change that?" He asks, his frown reappearing to replace the scared look on his face, the lines becoming more pronounced, making him look years older than he really is.

"I just want to know why." I say softly, shoving my hands under my legs to prevent them from shaking. "I thought you might have some insight, since you know…people who won't speak to y-victors." I catch myself from saying _you_ at the last second. Since Patch's family won't speak to Cara, or Demeter, or me, either. They must have a vendetta against us. That, or we're too close to Patch for their comfort.

"What's your friend's full name?" Patch says, leaning forward, sounding genuinely interested.

"Deirdre Connifer."

At the name, Patch's face drains of color, and his scowl deepens even further, if that's possible. "Yeah, I know who that is." He stands up, straightening his clothes which aren't wrinkled, and turns to open the door.

"Do you know why she won't speak to me?" I ask hesitantly, because I'm afraid of the answer. Because if Patch knows who Deirdre is, that must mean that she's part of the group of people Patch's family is a part of, the group of people who despise victors, who refuse to speak to all of us, who cut off Patch completely. And if the same is true for me with Deirdre, then I don't know how I can cope. She was my best friend before the Games, and I don't think that I could handle not speaking to my best friend.

"Yes," Patch grumbles, "the same reason she wouldn't speak to me, either." He closes the door, leaving me alone to contemplate the fact that my best friend won't ever speak to me again.

* * *

 _now_

I feel like a creep sitting here, waiting, spying on the market, but I can't help it, so I keep my head down, hope no one notices me. Some boy I don't recognize is sitting at the stall where I've seen Deirdre stand at on more than one occasion, but he's been here for almost an hour, and he came from the school, so he will probably go back soon and another person will take his place. As part of the last age group to eat, Deirdre might come out here next. I hope.

So I sit at the stall of the woman who trades herbs and spices, sipping an excellent mixture of some sort of tea brew she's made. She's quiet, which is nice, because whenever people see me now, they want to talk my ear off. I think her name is Myrtle. Either way, she doesn't expect me to speak to her, which is nice, and since there's only one stool here, which I'm currently occupying, no one else is going to linger for long, and if they do, they probably won't recognize me because I have a hood up. I keep glancing behind me, so I'm sure Myrtle knows where I'm looking, but she doesn't say anything, mercifully.

I've been sitting here at this stall for months, almost every day, watching, waiting for Deirdre to show up, and when she does, I lose my nerve to talk to her every time. This is coming from the girl who somehow found the courage to kill five underage teens in an arena, but go figure. I can't speak to the person who doesn't want to speak to me, I'm doing the best I can.

Finally, the bell tower at the Justice Building goes off, and I spin around to watch the boy sitting at the stall get up and retreat towards the school hurriedly. A few minutes later, someone else emerges from the school with a small brown bag. Deirdre.

Quickly, I open up my canvas bag and take out the small folded piece of paper and open it up, smoothing it out to reread it:

 _Please meet me at the corner of Yule Street and River Road after school. We need to talk_.

Maybe it sounds a bit stalker-ish, but hopefully Deirdre's curiosity will win out. She was always one up for exploring, far more than I was when we were friends. I make a small cough, and Myrtle looks at me, eyes wide. I smile, open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out.

"I-" I say, my jaw closing suddenly. I can do this. I'm just asking her to put the note on the stall. This isn't a big deal. I take in a deep breath. "I need you to surreptitiously leave this note at that stall, please. I can give you a few-"

"Of course, ma'am." She is careful to say _ma'am_ instead of Lena, which I appreciate. Most people in this district don't have the decency to pretend they don't know who I am. Then again, most people in this district are malnourished, or idiotic. Few people are decent and smart, like Myrtle. "Please, do not give me anything. It is no trouble." I fold up the note, place it in her rough hand, and smile gratefully at her.

"Thank you," I say. She gives a curt nod and moves off her stool. I don't follow her movements, instead, I sit tensely on the stool until she gets back.

"I put it on the table discreetly, but there's no way she missed it." Myrtle says, her eyes trained on the spot where the table is behind me. "She's reading it now." I nod in thanks to Myrtle.

School won't end for a few hours now, so I take my bag and rush home, eager to eat something in private because the eyes follow us everywhere in the District. I also can't stand to look at all the hungry people. Even though the Festival happened only a few days ago, food is always scarce for the people who were not "lucky" like my family. That is, if you consider being lucky including being forced into an arena to kill people, but I'm not one to judge. I killed five people, after all.

My mother isn't home, but she's left me a note telling me instructions for dinner preparations, and that she will be home soon. I follow the instructions, but since it's pretty much putting water in a pot, waiting for it to boil and tossing in corn, I don't bother leaving the house until it's done because it takes so little time.

But in all that time, I am a mess. I sit on the couch, biting my lip, peeling the skin around my fingernails, shedding skin, wondering what I will say to Deirdre when I see her. The questions I will ask her. Because I do not know what words will fly out of my mouth when I see her. _If_ I see her. She might guess who wrote the note and decide not to show up. I'm terrified. How can I be terrified of someone I used to have such a close relationship with? At the thought of seeing her? Every time I see her pass me by in the square, my heart starts panicking, and I have to remember what my doctor in the Capitol told me about coping mechanisms for my PTSD and anxiety. I take deep, even breaths, sipping water, and my heart slows, but the thoughts still come to mind just as steadily. Again and again, I wonder what she will say to me, but I won't know until I see her. My mind is running in circles.

By the time I leave the house, the school will be ending in a few minutes, so I hurry to the appointed meeting place. It's nowhere near where Deirdre and I used to meet up, halfway between our houses (my old house, and her current house), and nowhere near the Victor's Village. It's also far enough from the school that not many people, unless they live near where I've asked her to be, will see me.

The sun is setting when I step outside. It's cold. The wind is whistling in my ears, but I have a jacket, a hat that covers my ears, gloves, and boots from the Capitol. I'm never sure whether it's a good thing to appear in public dressed up in Capitol gear, or if it is better to appear in my old clothes. On one hand, I'd be satisfying the people that at least I live up to my expectations as a victor. At least I'm fully enjoying the treatment I'm receiving. On the other hand, if I wore my old clothes, I'd be stubbornly refusing help from the people who forced me into my situation in the first place. I'd be patriotic. A rebel, almost. So I wear the Capitol clothes, but only because it keeps me warmer. Not because I care about dampening a revolution.

The sunset only reminds me that it is wintertime where we are, because normally the sun is still up when school lets out. But the colors are spectacular to look at. Blue, red, yellow, orange, purple, pink. And they're not faint colors. They are gorgeous, intense, wonderful to lay eyes on. This is one thing I never got in the arena. Sunrises and sunsets were fairly quick, and if they slowed down at all, the sky did not light up. It's just one more thing I missed about home.

I make my way through the streets carefully, because I've only been on this path once before, when I was choosing where to meet. The path is unfamiliar, though the houses all look exactly the same as any other house in District 9. Featureless, colorless, nothing to distinguish one family from the next, even with the Harvest Festival. So much time is spent in the fields, in the factories, that no one feels like spending time to stand out and celebrate by decorating their houses.

When I reach the corner of Yule Street and River Road, I stop, and look for a suitable place to hide so that when Deirdre gets here, she doesn't immediately see me and run away. Hopefully she'll think it's someone else and wait for them. There's one house that's covered in cobwebs, a sign that no one has lived here in a long time, so I lean against the side of the house that is further from the direction of the school, waiting.

I hear footsteps and chatter, none of it Deirdre's voice, so I lean down, pretending to hide a flame in my hands, and no one approaches me. The wind is getting harder, so I hug myself, trying to keep the warmth in. What was I thinking, telling Deirdre to meet me, today of all days? She's going to go home, to be with her family, to keep warm, and she will lose no sleep over missing this, and I will have missed the only opportunity I have to-

"Whoever you are, wherever you're hiding, I'm here. And it's cold. So let's go somewhere we can talk in front of a fire."

A chill that has nothing to do with the weather runs up my spine, and I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. That is Deirdre's voice. It's taken me off guard. I'm still bent over, so I put my head between my knees and breathe, once, twice, before standing and walking out to where she can see me before I lose my nerve.

It's hard to meet her face, but I do, and when I do, I can see a range of emotions flicker across Deirdre's face. Surprise, fear, sadness, pride, anger. She was never good at concealing her emotions when she felt strongly about something. Some things never change. But in the months since I've seen her, she's changed. Her hair is cut very short, and it looks darker than it was a few months ago, probably because it's the dead of winter now. She looks taller, thinner, there are bags under her eyes, and sadder.

I see her hands clench her bag tighter, her muscles tense up, and my heart begins to pound again. In the arena, I taught myself to look for signs of anxiety in people and in animals. In animals, it could be that they are on the verge of flight from a human. In people, it could be that they are about to flee. But it could also mean that they are about to attack.

I doubt that Deirdre would physically hurt me if all I've asked for is a chance to talk, but there's a first time for everything. The last year of my life is proof of that.

I walk slowly closer to her, trying to keep my breaths slow and steady, even though my heart is racing. All at once, everything I planned on asking her falls out of my mind, and when I get close enough to see the fear and uncertainty in her eyes, all I can think to say is "Hi."

She doesn't move. Not an inch. Her eyes are unblinking. They stare at me, scrutinizing every part of me. She must be in shock. Her whole body looks tense and unmoving, compared to me. I'm shaking like a leaf.

I clear my throat. "I'm glad you're here." She still makes no movement. "I wanted to…see you." Perhaps it will scare her if I talk about talking. This takes the pressure off the situation. First stage, looking, seeing. Next stage, we can start screaming at each other. But for many more seconds that leave me increasingly anxious, Deirdre stands there and looks at me, like I'm some strange abomination she's never seen before. She must be wondering what to say.

I break the silence for a third time. "I was wondering if we could…talk. It's been a long time." I don't move from my spot. Hopefully if I mirror her actions, she will not be as scared to respond. Mirroring evokes strong feelings of trust in people. So I stand there, staring at her with what I hope is a neutral expression, because I, too, have never been good at concealing my emotions, waiting for one of us to break the silence, but I hope she does it first because I've done more than my fair share of breaking the silence. It's her turn.

We stand there for several more seconds, waiting in silence. Meanwhile, the sun is setting fast, and it's getting dark even faster. The wind is getting stronger and colder, and I'm just about to tell her to forget it because surely she's waiting till dark when she absolutely has to be home and will then have an excuse to leave when she begins speaking.

"There's nothing that we can talk about." She says simply. There's no edge in her voice, no malice. It sounds practiced, perfected, measured. As though she's been waiting for a long time for me to reach out to her.

A number of words flash through my mind so I wait a moment for the acceptable words to come to my mind so I can respond without scaring her off. "I understand that, but I would still like to speak to you." I say it in the most kind voice I can think to use.

"There is nothing you can say to me now, Magdalena, that I don't already know." She says this so calmly, and my heart is pounding, it is sinking and pounding and my entire body is thrumming, alive with energy, so alive with adrenaline that I do not feel cold anymore.

"Deirdre," I say, and then I catch myself before I say something I will regret. "I will respect your wishes, but I would like to know why you haven't been speaking to me since I got back." I stare at her face, notice a tiny freckle on her cheek, waiting for her to respond. Her face pinches momentarily before going back to a carefully composed expression. She breathes in deeply and I brace myself for the impact her words will surely have.

She speaks in an octave so low I can barely hear it, and her jaw barely opens as the words come out. "I will never forgive you for what happened in the Games. Never." She says. The words send shocks up and down my body, though I don't move. Before I can even think to ask why, she continues. "I will never forgive you for that, and I will never speak to you as long as you are with that…man."

"Patch?" I say, almost in a trance, remembering suddenly what Patch told me about Deirdre months ago. "What's Patch got to do with this?"

"Everything, Lena," Deirdre hisses, her face working itself into an expression of rage. "He's got everything to do with it."

"Say I forget Patch," I say. "What, then? Will you start speaking to me?"

She is too furious for words. Too furious to even shake her head yes or no. I can tell by her face that she is saying no.

"Why? Why are you doing this to me?" I say, and I so badly want to reach out and touch her arm, but that will only push her away further. She's standing so close to me, less than two feet, but, and I know it is cliché, I could not feel further from her in this moment. I feel miles away, I feel as though I am back in the arena, facing one last tribute to defeat, somehow. But this time I can't use a physical weapon to make the threat go away. I must use my wits, my words, and I have never been good at censoring what I say.

"Do you understand nothing?" Deirdre says, her voice raising in volume. "Don't you get how big a deal this is? How much it means?" She is yelling now. "I cared about you for so long, I might have even loved you, because you were my best friend! You are lucky I even came out here!" She is on the verge of tears, because her voice is trembling, and that means that she is either extremely happy, or about to cry. "You are lucky I valued our friendship enough to give you closure!" The tears are falling. She raises her finger authoritatively, shaking it in my face like a mother scolding her child. "This is the last time I will think of our friendship as anything other than a mistake. This is the last time, Lena."

"Twelve years," I say. "We were best friends for twelve years, and this is all I get?" I raise my arms, gesturing. "This is how far twelve years of loyalty gets me with you? Us screaming at each other and saying we'll never speak to each other ever again?"

"Twelve years," Deirdre chuckles darkly. "Twelve years is nothing, Lena." She stops laughing, wipes her eyes and looks at me with a sense of finality. "Compare that to eighteen years of a relationship with God, who has never wavered, has never abandoned me, has never killed five young, beautiful, innocent children just for the hell of it! Eighteen years with God, Lena!" She continues wiping her face, and backing away, and just before she turns around to abandon me completely, she says, "My relationship with God means far more than any foolish friendship I ever thought I could have with you."

As she walks away, the image of her yelling at me burns itself into my mind, and I get the feeling that this is the last time I will ever speak to her again.

* * *

 _then_

It's nighttime. I'm exhausted, and I should be getting sleep, but I know tonight it will be impossible to shut my eyes for more than a few minutes. Because tonight is my first night in the Hunger Games, and if I let my guard down for even just a moment, it could mean the difference between my life and death.

So I stay awake. Waiting for the anthem to blare, to display who died in the Bloodbath. I must try not to move, because moving would make noise, and if I make noise, any tribute nearby could hear me and choose to kill me, and all it would depend on is if they had a weapon or not. Not even, because they could use their fists, if they were strong enough, or simply suffocate me. Movement means death.

 _Be quick. Be quiet._

I recall the instructions Patch gave me, and it helps to calm me. Surely someone who survived his own Hunger Games knows what he's talking about. He will get me through this.

The anthem blares, and I look up through the slats of my lean-to to watch who has been killed so far.

The boy from 3. The girl from 5. Both from 6. Both from 8. Then they're displaying Kian's photo. My district partner! Oh, no…

Kian may have been an idiot who had no respect for his own life, but he was from home. I cover my mouth and choke back a sob.

The girl from 10. The boy from 11. And finally, both from 12.

Eleven tributes gone, and one of them my own District partner.

I'd be lying to myself if I said I hadn't considered allying with him. He was the only person I knew, the only one I would've gotten along with. The only one I could've come to trust. And now he's gone. He will never breathe, move, or speak, ever again.

It hits me all at once. I want to go home. I want to go home, be in my bed, and let everyone else protect me from the horrors of the universe, let everyone else deal with all the bad things.

But I can't. So I swallow my tears and curl into a smaller ball, because the wind is strong and I need to stay warm. In my addled state during the Bloodbath, I couldn't think to grab anything of worth so I am left with just my wits and training knowledge.

And my knowledge has led me this far. Far enough that I haven't died yet. I can make it further. Somehow, I drift off to sleep, knowing I will wake in a few hours, to move my camp…

It's not the sun that wakes me, but the sound of whimpering from somewhere behind me. And it's not an animal sound. It's a human that's making that sound. A sound of distress. Immediately, a sense of urgency floods my nerves. I have to get out of here before this person endangers my life. They probably haven't been making noise for so long, if they aren't dead already.

My neck is stiff and unyielding to the movement I make when I sit up as slowly as I can, trying to make as little noise as possible. If the Careers haven't gotten to this person, they're close, and I can't risk making any sound or being spotted or I will die at their hands and that is _not_ how I want to go out. If I die, I want it to be an epic battle. I want to go down trying. If I die, I want to die because I was smart enough to survive, not stupid enough to get caught.

So I move as slowly as possible, and begin to break up my lean-to so as not to attract attention by such a man made structure.

I hear moans coming from behind me. They're loud. This person is going to be killed, and if I don't do something about before the Careers get here, I'm going to die, too.

Moving on a path that isn't covered by fallen leaves, I run from tree to tree, following the sounds of the moaning. As I get closer, strands of white begin to litter the ground and hang over the trees. They're long, thick strands, but I don't dare touch them, because they might be poisonous, or adhesive. I stoop down to examine one such strand, and poke it with a stick. White goo oozes forth from where I touch it, and I make a face. This is definitely poisonous. If I get a knife, I should coat it in this stuff.

When I look up, I spot him and almost pass out at the sight.

This boy, and he looks more like a kid, actually, is completely and helplessly entangled in these white strands that I now recognize as a spiderweb. But the spiders who created it must be a mutt, because I've never seen strands of web this thick before. He's struggling to wiggle out of it, but if the Careers or the poison doesn't get to him, the spiders will come back soon and get him. The strands are covering his eyes, so he can't see me, but he must be able to hear me, because when I approach him, he stops whimpering and chokes out a quiet, "Hello?"

"Hi," I respond softly. "Hey, just keep your voice down, so the Careers can't find us."

"Okay," the boy sniffles. "Wh-what's your name?"

"Lena," I reply, moving closer but making sure to steer clear of the webs. "What about you?" I try to keep my voice as calm as possible, so as not to scare him. Silently, I begin to circle him, looking for any weapons or supplies he might have.

"Kita," the boy chokes out quietly. "Lena?"

"Yes?"

"I'm scared."

I consider this for a moment before replying. "Me, too, Kita. But I'm going to get you out of this." _One way or another, dead or alive_.

"Okay."

He's silent, and I'm not moving, but I begin to hear the unmistakable sound of a large group of tributes moving through this forest. I can hear their boots crunching the leaves. They don't care who hears them. Anyone who tries to flee will be found. The Careers.

"Kita, I don't want you to panic, but the Careers are coming, so I want you to stay as quiet and as still as possible."

Kita keeps still while I continue to circle him, searching for something to get him out of this, even though it looks like he's completely entangled. There is no way that I will be able to cut him out of this before the Careers get here. And if I graze him with any sort of weapon, the poison that's building up on the surface of his skin is likely to enter his body immediately and kill him in seconds.

In other words, he's already dead.

The Careers are close. He's likely to suffer a slow, painful death at their hands, so if I chose to kill him, I would be showing him a mercy. A kindness, really. Patch showed me where it is most effective to kill someone with a knife, so I am physically prepared. But am I emotionally prepared?

I have a choice here. I can choose to spare this boy's life, to be his ally. We can be a team, help each other out. I can choose to not kill him.

Or I can choose to eliminate just one part of the competition. Mark myself as a vicious player, gain sponsors. I can choose to kill him.

"I'm sorry, Kita." I whisper.

What happens next I can't prevent. He has a knife in his belt, so I take it out, being careful to not touch any of the strands of the web, move my knife to his neck, and make an incision across the artery that is pulsing there. Blood begins to rush out of his neck, and Kita's neck hangs limp. Hopefully, it was painless. That's the best I can give him.

Fortunately, he was carrying a small backpack that isn't attached to him, so I cut it out of the spiderwebs easily, and grasp it with the edge of my jacket. The footfalls of the Careers are getting closer. In any second, a cannon is going to fire, and they're going to see this body and look for a killer. I can't run without making noise. There's nowhere to hide.

So I hastily shove the knife into my belt, praying it doesn't fall, and shrug on the backpack, and begin to climb.

I'm not the best at climbing, so my fingers are already bloody by the time the Careers make it here, and I honestly haven't made it that far up the tree yet, so, silently, I keep going, biting back the pain in my fingers as they grasp at the rough surface of the tree. Finally, I make it to a branch that's high enough that the leaves and branches below me conceal the Careers from my line of vision, so hopefully they can't see me either.

The cannon goes off for the boy.

And all at once, it hits me again.

I made a conscious choice to kill. I don't know whether to be proud, or scared, or guilty, or ashamed. I ended the life of a young child. My hands are shaking and it's not from the effort it took to climb the tree. While the Careers wonder below who could've killed this boy and wander away so the hovercraft can pick up his body, I hold myself in my arms, choking back sobs that shake my body, hopefully convincing the Capitol audience that all I am doing is trying to stay warm. But the truth is so much different.

My hands, my head, every part of me, shaking. The body, the mind, the hands of a murderer.

* * *

 _now_

I can still hear Deirdre's footsteps retreating as I sink to the ground, tears falling from my eyes, but strangely, I don't make any sounds. All I can hear are the last words she said to me. Our friendship is nothing anymore. At least, not to her. The wind is still whipping my hair around, snapping in my face and on my arms and back, but I can't feel anything. Can't feel anything…

The next thing I know, I'm in a flat out run towards somewhere I don't know. My feet are carrying me somewhere and there's nothing I can do to change the outcome of wherever it is I'm going so I don't stop until I'm suddenly pounding on the door. It opens, and I collapse onto the ground. I only vaguely register that it's completely pitch black outside before my eyes shut and the awful, awful sounds begin.

It's a terrible wailing sound, like an animal in pain, unable to say how miserable it feels, and somehow, I get the feeling that it's coming from me. Somehow, this anguish is coming directly from my mouth, and nothing is stopping it. Nothing at all, can stop this. My best friend has just chosen to abandon me. She made a _conscious decision_ …

Then again, so did I. I remember the boy, Kita, from District 5. The first person I killed in the Games. I see him. Tangled in that mess of poisonous web. Struggling, moaning, crying for help, attracting trouble. How _stupid_ he was. He was going to get me killed. I _had_ to kill him.

Thinking about him does not make it better. Instead, wherever I'm laying is wet, but I can't bring myself to move. All I can do is listen to that awful wailing noise, and keep my eyes shut tight to block out this terrible, miserable existence.

I should have died in the arena, I should have died in the arena, I SHOULD HAVE FUCKING DIED.

And then the wailing goes away and I drift apart from here.

The next time I wake up, the wailing has stopped. The only thing I can hear is the sound of someone breathing beside me, and rain tapping on the window. I'm in a bed. It's warm. The pillows are vaguely wet, stained by something. I open my eyes sluggishly. It's dark outside, but there's a lamp on in this room. It's a small room, but it feels comfortable. I feel comfortable. Someone has taken off my clothes, leaving me in a simple shirt and loose pants, with my hair tangled all around me. I have no idea what time it is.

With excruciating difficulty, I turn my head to the other side, to see who is breathing next to me, and find a familiar face with the eyes closed. It's lined with stubble on the jaw, has long eyelashes, and is framed by curly hair. For a moment I forget who it is, but then I reach out with my fingers and trace the jawline softly. The face breathes in deeply and the eyes flutter open, momentarily looking scared but then soften.

Patch is quiet, letting me trace his face with my fingers. He doesn't move, or speak. He just watches me. Probably thinking about why I barged into his home and collapsed onto the floor in tears and started screaming. But for the moment I push that away, because I can't think about Deirdre and her inability to forgive me for something that I shouldn't be blamed for. I focus on the person in front of me. The one who has done nothing but support me.

His eyes are a really blue color. Our eyes are such similar colors that if our hair was the same, you might think we were related, but we're not. I'm sure I look like a mess, but Patch doesn't flinch, even as his eyes travel all over my face. I can't quite tell what he's thinking given that we're both sideways, but he doesn't look upset or angry. He doesn't look like he's ecstatic either, but Patch has never been one to give away his emotional state for free to any stranger who's watching. Not like I'm a stranger, or anything.

Slowly, my fingers fall to the bed, and Patch looks at me, unblinking. We're both silent. Neither of us has said a word to each other since I've gotten here, if you don't count my mental breakdown that led to me getting here. But I can't think about that. I can't think about the unimaginable pain of being cut off from someone that I love, so I don't. I focus on the person in front of me. This person, who means so much, who cares so deeply for me, who _I_ care so deeply for…

My eyes close, and for a few silent moments, I'm at the mercy of a murderer.

Then again, I, too, am a murderer.

But it turns out not to matter, because I can feel his lips touch mine.

Us murderers, accepted by no one else but ourselves.

And I can't help what comes next.

Something wet is streaming onto the pillows again, and Patch retreats to look at me in concern. The tears are flowing, but I can't acknowledge it or else the screaming will start again.

He takes a deep breath, says, "Deirdre?"

And what I say back is, "Deirdre."

* * *

 _then_

I think I've been taking this relatively calmly since it happened. After dancing in the rain for a moment, I lowered my arms, and practically fled to the stage, chock full of adrenaline. Nothing could stop me if I was that full of adrenaline. Then, a boy named Kian Pewing was reaped, and the reaping ended shortly after that. I didn't get much of an impression from Kian, who looked so shocked it seemed like his jaw might fall off, but I'm hoping he's not too much of an idiot, because I plan on surviving, and the tributes who survive more often than not had allies. I'm not a monster, so my district partner is a natural choice for an ally.

But that's not the important part. Because those parts are on tv. They don't televise or film the goodbyes you say to your family and friends, so I must guard these memories with an ironclad grip. My parents and my brother have all said goodbye to me, and I don't expect anyone else besides Deirdre to visit me, so I'm sitting on the couch in the moldy room in the Justice Building, going over my memories when Deirdre steps into my room, crying her eyes out.

She walks into my arms, and I must admit that I'm a bit surprised by her reaction. Deirdre has always been good at concealing her emotions, whereas I'm the one who struggles. I find it a bit ironic that I'm the one going off to my death but I'm the one rubbing my best friend's back, trying to comfort her.

We stand there for a good two minutes, but eventually I pull away, because I do have a few things to say to her before I leave for good. "Deirdre," I say gently, "I just want to say goodbye." Her eyes are wet as they flit all over my face. "And I hope to see you later." I say in the same careful manner. She shakes her head violently, and dissolves into tears again.

I can't gage what the problem is. Why would she shake her head, almost in defiance?

"Deirdre, what is it?" I ask, rubbing her arms and ducking my head to try and make eye contact with her. But she's refusing to meet my gaze. She just continues crying, making my shirt wet and stained with her tears. For a few disgusting moments, I'm grateful that these goodbyes aren't filmed, because, frankly, this is embarrassing. Embarrassing that I have friends back home who can't pull themselves together, who, weakly, is crying at the prospect of my death. Then I'm annoyed. Because I look strong in comparison to Deirdre. I'm the very picture of grace, of strength, and acceptance. I wish I could show this to the Capitol audience. That in a moment of letting go my past, I look to the future with grace and determination, not tears in my eyes. Even if it is only because the person I'm saying goodbye to can barely keep herself together long enough to simply say goodbye to her best friend who's going off to her death.

I can't give Deirdre the confidence that my determination is strong unless she stops crying. So I try to tell her that we only have a short time together, but she is adamant, and she persists in crying. I feel helpless, so I continue to comfort her until I'm sure that we only have mere moments left together.

The crying has stopped, and she draws in deep, rough, shuddery breaths, trying to pull herself together enough to say, "Don't you dare kill anyone."

My mouth drops open but before I can say anything Deirdre continues. "Don't you _dare_ kill anyone." She whispers fiercely. "It will ruin you." I can't fathom any response. How could I possible come home without killing anyone? The moment I read my name on that stinking piece of cardboard in Bonnie Sawyer's hands, I accepted that I was going to have to shove all my feelings aside. Because if I felt any ounce of regret in the arena, I would lose any audience sympathy. I was going to have to kill. Because there is no way that I am dying in that arena. No way that I am going to let anyone outsmart me enough to catch me off my guard. I know I am good enough, I am smart enough, and if I train hard enough, I have a shot. But there's no way I will be able to get through the Hunger Games without killing anyone. Unless I'm really really lucky.

"Deirdre, what?" I can't refuse her, because she might perceive that as being pushed away. "What do you mean by that?"

"Just promise me you won't kill anyone, because I can't lose you," Deirdre's gripping my arm really hard now, staring at me with tears in her eyes, but her face is solemn. "Lena, promise me you won't kill anyone!" She raises her voice and starts crying again.

"Okay, I won't!" I yell. She doesn't loosen her grip, but she instead wraps her arms around me and holds me tightly until the Peacekeepers come to collect her.

I can't help but think of what I just promised to do. Because there's no way I can keep it. I want to _live_. And there's no way I can keep my promise to Deirdre if I want to live. So it's a question of if I want to live, or if I want to keep my best friend in the whole world on my side. I have no doubt that she's right about killing. That it will ruin me. If I kill anyone in the arena before I die, I'm certain it will haunt me until I'm dead. But I can live with that. I can live with breaking a promise. I can't live if I'm dead. In fact, the drive to live is so intense right now that I'm not sure I _could_ die, even if someone cut off all my limbs and I was losing all the blood in my body.

I owe it to Deirdre to try.

But if it comes down to it, my life is worth far more than any promise I make to anyone.

* * *

 **A/N: As soon as I have finished transcribing the following journal entry, I shall upload it in its entirety to this medium. If you have any issues at all with this story, leave a comment below and I will do my best to mediate. I cannot promise a happy outcome.**


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